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Sundays With Strangers

This subtly lavish house is in Kalorama, so if you end up buying the place there’s a good chance you’ll run into Obama when you’re walking your dog or something, and you’ll get to ask him about his latest conversations with the future president. (“He called to ask if it would be legal to cover the Capitol dome in gold leaf.”) Ha ha! What a nice thought, being neighbors with the Obamas. Realistically though, all it’ll mean is that you’ll be late to work twice a week because of his motorcade. Which means you have an ironclad, unverifiable excuse to be late to work twice a week, which quite frankly is probably just as good as actually being friends with an ex-President.

Anyway, this house is built in the Spanish style, which means that when you have your friends over to check out the place, one of them will be like, “ay caramba! Ha ha!” And then there’ll be this awkward silence where everyone is wondering to themselves, “wait, was that vaguely racist or just not funny? You can never be sure these days.” You do not, repeat DO NOT, enter into a foyer here – a foyer is a narrow, cramped space for muddy boots and broken umbrellas. This house has a full-blown reception hall, with a grand piano and everything. On the scale of subtlety, having a grand piano in your house’s entryway is just this side of actually slapping guests in the face with a rubber-banded stack of hundred dollar bills when they walk in the door. Still, I’d do it if I could. The all-white living room features oversized windows and a white marble fireplace, and the salmon-colored dining room is even bigger, with an even bigger fireplace. (What would happen if you put all your living room furniture in the dining room and started taking meals in the living room? Would the police immediately kick your door down and take you to jail? Seems like there should be consequences.)

The hypermodern kitchen sports minimalist cabinetry, and tons of it. This is the type of kitchen where realistically you could open a cupboard to put the cereal away and a human being jumps out. (Hopefully a friend playing a trick on you, and not a wino who wandered in through the back door and fell asleep in the pantry.) French doors and a floor-to-ceiling window open onto the back patio; Windex them down really really clear, and you could definitely trick a member of the family into walking face-first into the glass. (Legal disclaimer: this blog is not liable if you do this and the person shatters the window and has to be rushed to the hospital for severe blood loss.)

Let’s go upstairs. We could walk up the primitive column of tiny incrementally-rising foot-platforms or we could take THE PRIVATE ELEVATOR. Yeah, this place has a private elevator. I’ve never had a private elevator, so I don’t know how useful it might be, but I imagine that the best thing about a private elevator is that it suddenly converts the normal everyday act of taking the stairs into, like, a praiseworthy and virtuous act. “I could’ve been lazy and taken the elevator, but I walked up the stairs! Who’s a great person? This guy right over here.” Upstairs, the master bedroom features a small balcony and enough room for a California King or three, and the master bath has twin basins, a glass-walled shower, and enough glowing white marble that if you slip coming out of the shower and hit your head, when you regain consciousness you might think you’re in the afterlife.

Upstairs (this is a four-level home!) is a beautiful home office/lounge that opens onto a roof deck, and out in back of the house is an absolutely stunning, multi-tiered, flagstone patio and landscaped garden, complete with a small ornamental pool and towering, ivy-covered walls. Finally, on the lower level is a two bedroom in-law suite, which is really great because you know darn well that Nancy hasn’t slept in the same bed as Rick for years, what with his sleep apnea. Now they can visit several times a year!